[Study and diagnosis of pancreatic cancer]

The most common initial symptom was abdominal pain. Other frequent debut symptoms were loss of weight and jaundice. ERCP and PTC were found to be the best diagnostic procedures. CT or ultrasonography were normal in 10-20% of the patients. Nearly all tumors of the pancreas were found by the ERCP procedure. We also used angiography to evaluate operability of the pancreas tumor. Angiography was found to be a very uncertain diagnostic procedure, however, and we have now decided not to use angiography in the future evaluation of patients with cancer of the pancreas.